Programmes for Howard Assembly Room at Opera North

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There will be a ten day opening celebration for the new Howard Assembly Room. Some events are free. Tickets for all other events are £10. Attendance at all events, free or at £10, requires a ticket. Here is what's on for the first week.

Friday 16 January, 5.30pm
Iannucci and Jones on ‘Skin Deep’
Free event only for Skin Deep ticket holders
Ahead of the world premiere of Skin Deep, award-winning writer and broadcaster Armando Iannucci (Knowing me, knowing you…with Alan Partridge, The Thick of It) in conversation with leading opera director Richard Jones, providing some insight to their creation of a satirical opera about cosmetic surgery.

Saturday 17 January 8pm
Joanna MacGregor: Pictures at an Exhibition
Tickets £10
One of the world’s most wide-ranging, innovative and imaginative musicians, pianist Joanna MacGregor performs an eclectic programme that includes Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, six mazurkas by Chopin, six dances by Bartók and Bach’s French Suite no.5.

Sunday 18 January, 8pm
I Fagiolini, Monteverdi: Flaming Heart
Tickets £10
This internationally-renowned vocal ensemble brings together a rich variety of Monteverdi’s secular music, from a capella madrigals to intimate duets and grander works with strings. Flaming Heart demonstrates Monteverdi’s genius for expressing powerful emotion through music of matchless beauty.

Tuesday 20 January, 7pm
Peter and the Wolf: film directed by Suzie Templeton
Tickets £10. Free to under 18s.
This Oscar-winning animated film of Prokofiev’s classic musical tale is accompanied live by the Orchestra of Opera North.

Tuesday 20 January, 4.30pm – 6pm
Family Workshop
Tickets £3 to adults, free entry to others.
Families can explore the themes of Peter and the Wolf in this fun movement workshop.

Wednesday 21 January, 1.45pm talk followed by 2.30pm rehearsal
Free
What really goes on during an orchestral rehearsal? Hear about preparing for a performance and then attend a rehearsal of Richard Strauss’s epic opera Elektra, conducted by Opera North’s Music Director Richard Farnes.

Thursday 22 January 5.45pm
Twilight: Prokofiev Plus
Free
Internationally acclaimed flautist Kevin Gowland and pianist Annette Saunders play John Ranish’s early baroque Sonata in B minor, Gaubert’s Deux Esquisses and Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 2 in D major.

Thursday 22 January 8pm
Fflur Wyn and Andrew Tortise: Wolf’s Italian Songbook
Tickets £10
Soprano Fflur and Baritone Andrew Tortise, sing from Hugo Wolf's Italian Songbook. Intensely romantic, Wolf set this collection of 46 poems to deeply touching music which evokes the joys and frustrations of young love.

Friday 23 January, 5.45pm
Twilight: Amrit Sond in Concert
Free
The unique sound of Grammy Award Winning Guitarist Amrit Sond whose use of new acoustic techniques alongside elements of world music, jazz, classical and folk, creates an energising new musical experience. In association with SAA-UK

Friday 23 January, 8pm
Rory Bremner.
Tickets £10
A few days after President Obama’s inauguration, Rory Bremner presents a special one-off evening of topical satire on all things, followed by a unique opportunity to join the UK’s leading satirical comedian and impressionist in conversation on the subject of humour and politics.

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